Last May, I quit my job without having another one in place. (Not smart, I know). I was hurt by a lot of things going on, and it just wasn't a positive work environment for me anymore. So, just two short weeks before my wedding, I left my position as an Assistant Manager at the movie theater I'd worked at for seven-and-a-half years.
I thought I would be able to easily find a job. I'm young, I have a degree, I'm a fast learner - why wouldn't I be able to find a job? Well, the economy sucks, people who have degrees and more experience are settling for entry level jobs and a lower pay rate just to make a living, and any job I could possibly find that was something related to my English major that I thought I'd be interested in required years of experience I didn't have. Needless to say, my hunt was going nowhere until I received a message from an old colleague asking if I was interested in full-time employment. After that, I went through an incredibly long process and ended up with a different position than I'd originally applied for, but it was a job, nonetheless.
While sitting in a cubicle conducting phone interviews and employment reference checks was never something I envisioned myself doing, I quickly found that the people I worked with made the job worthwhile, and I had a great boss who always seemed to be in a good mood and regularly said thank you. It wasn't easy to adjust to an 8-5:00 schedule five days a week, but the time went by quickly, and before I knew it, Jeans Friday rolled around each week, and then I had a whole weekend to sleep in and recover before heading back to work again on Monday morning.
In December, we even got to work overtime! I was so excited! It was the first time I'd been able to earn overtime for working more than 40 hours, and I worked through my lunches and stayed an hour later a few days out of each week. Right before Christmas, my boss sent around an e-mail letting us all know we could take whatever time off we wanted for the holidays because things would be slowing down and picking back up again at the start of the year.
Things didn't pick up for the client I was working on. Before I knew it, seven people had been laid off, and I had no security blanket left. Despite being hired with in weeks of one another, all in a row, the last person to be laid off was the one who started the week after myself and the other person that started the same day as me. It was getting too close for comfort.
Last week Friday, we had a meeting for the second day in a row, but this time, my boss let the remaining six of us left working on that client that they had decided to stop using us for their hiring. He said they would look into trying to find us new positions, but that everything would be wrapping up by February 1st and he'd keep us posted on the details.
I sent a couple of e-mails throughout the week to ask my boss questions in order to find out more information about my impending layoff. When he asked for my resume and the resume of the other person who started the same day as I did, we both thought we were important and that it meant something. Then, that all changed Thursday afternoon. The three of us with the later hire dates were sent e-mails telling us Friday would be our last days, and my boss would give us a call if there was any more work for us to come back and do. For the two of us whose resumes he'd asked for, I quickly realized it wasn't because we were any better than the others - he knew we'd be the ones getting laid off. Meanwhile, the three of them were able to switch over to a different client and continue to work there.
I know that I can't take this personally. Things went strictly according to dates of hire, no matter how close to one another those dates are. It wasn't that I loved my job, but I quickly became attached to the people there. I was just getting comfortable with everyone and not as scared to sit with them to eat lunches in the break room. I got extremely close to three other people - one of which is the one I started with. I was surprised at how easily the friendship came for the four of us, but it was the three of them that made work so much fun. Now that two of them got to stay, it made it harder to leave. Prior to Thursday, I thought we were all in it together. Learning that wasn't the case just made me feel bad about myself.
Surprisingly, not long after I received the dreaded e-mail, I got a voicemail from someone at another branch from the same company I work for. He wanted to talk to me about a position there, so I called him back right away and set up an interview for this Tuesday morning at 10. This office would be farther away from my house and bump my commute to work up to 20 minutes instead of 12, but at this point, I need a job, so I am going to see what this is all about.
It just feels like sometimes, there's nothing you can do about how things end up. Leaving this job was harder because it wasn't my choice to leave, and I was still happy there. I can only hope the job hunt this time around is more successful than last time and that I find something sooner that makes me just as happy and is something I enjoy. Is that too much to ask?
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